Saber is perhaps the oldest living Red-tailed Hawk. She was taken from her nest 36 years ago by a licensed falconer who trained her to the glove. She was taught to fly out and catch prey, and bring it back to her trainer for sport, and for public programs.
Red-tails are large hawks in the Buteo family with Broadwing Hawks. Their body build gives them power over open spaces, rather than the maneuverability that a falcon or accipiter displays in tight spaces. Instead, Red-tails are often seen sitting on telephone lines scanning open fields for prey, then flying out to an individual animal. They do a lot of soaring and can be identified by this behavior and their broad blunt wings and tail.
Saber, after a long career in falconry, developed cataracts, and it was no longer safe for her to fly free. At this point she was given to a wonderful educator in mid-Maine who used her on the glove for many years to teach the public about her species. Her final move came when the educator added a young male Red-tail to the enclosure. The two formed a pair bond, which sounds nice, but they would no longer let their keeper in the cage without dive-bombing her and it became too dangerous for her to keep them both. She offered Saber to me for her retirement years, and she came here to join our female Red-tail, Madison.
Madison had an old broken wing from a car hit and was a leucistic bird meaning she had a genetic mutation that caused white coloration on her feathers. She began as normal colored and changed slowly over the years until almost all of her was white. Only one bird in 30,000 is leucistic or albinistic, making her a very rare bird. Unfortunately for us, Madison and Saber also liked each other quite a lot and began pair-bonding, even though both female. Each spring until Madison’s death, they made a nest, laid eggs, and sat on the eggs. I was the only keeper to go in the cage and carried a long pole to protect my head during breeding season. Saber lives on, way past the normal Red-tailed lifespan and is as beautiful as ever.
